Victor the Volvo: 200,000 and Beyond

I am delighted to say that earlier this week, my car reached that milestone of 200,000 miles. Victor the Volvo has been nothing but joy for me. I, of course, have only put on about 40,000 of those miles, but I gotta say that I love the car. For one thing, it’s tremendously reliable. Sure, it’s had a couple of flat tires and once even caught fire at a gas station, and at one point was given a pretty poor diagnosis, but the car simply keep going without a problem. Amazingly, in the almost-three years since I’ve had the car, it’s never once been broken down and never gets anything more than the regular oil change. Now that’s a good car.

And to be even more sentimental regarding this amazing ’92 creation, I must say that there are countless times when I drive it with a complete sense of gratitude. You see, Victor the Volvo was given to me. It was a generous act of Christian charity (and when I say charity, I mean charity in the sense of “faith, hope, and charity, and the greatest of these is charity” and not in the sense of “oh my, look at him, that poor desolate soul”), and one that I am blessed to be frequently reminded of every time I start my car. I can only hope to be as generous in spirit as so many others have been to me.

I never know how long I’ll have my car. Sometimes I get little scares that it might be approaching its end, but then it surprisingly overcomes and purrs (and sometimes screeches) with pleasure. At my agency, we pick up a lot of our clients. Some of my clients mock my car, scoffing at its lack of air conditioning or lamenting that the sun roof doesn’t actually open. I simply look at them and tell them that this car has aged well, and I can only hope that they do the same.